November 10, 2017 Hello ,
Thanks to everyone who wrote to enter the drawing for BOUND BY ICE: A TRUE NORTH POLE SURVIVAL STORY. The winner is LeeAnn Rizzuti.
The rest of you have one more chance to win!
US Army Nurse Josephine Heffernan might have slipped into history unnoticed by all except friends and family, if she hadn't lost a bracelet.
Josephine had come to America from Ireland in 1906 and joined the army as a nurse in
1910. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, there were only 403 nurses in the army, and she was one of them.
Josephine, shown at left, was serving as chief nurse at the Fort McDowell post hospital on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.
As hundreds of thousands of men volunteered or were drafted into the army, the medical corps raced to set up camp hospitals to care for soldiers who got sick before shipping off to
war.
Such a camp opened at Fort Shelby, near Hattiesburg Mississippi in September 1917, and Josephine was transferred from Angel Island to work there.
Below, she describes what she found at the camp hospital. In the spring of 1918, Josephine was shipped overseas, where eventually she was stationed at US Army Base Hospital Number 52 in Rimaucourt, France. Shown below is a photo of nurses caring for wounded soldiers in ward one of the hospital, which had
been set up in a school building. Some 85-years later, the building was once more a school when an 8-year-old boy found a bracelet in the dirt of the playground. The bracelet was inscribed with Josephine's name and initials identifying the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. The boy asked his
teacher to help him find the woman and return the bracelet. Teacher Estelle Lefeuvre search first in the United States for some clue to Josephine's whereabouts, and after some time discovered a death notice for a women by her name in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. She discovered that Josephine had remained an army nurse until
1943, working in Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Hawaii before retiring and returning to her homeland.
Josephine lived out her years in Ireland, never marrying or having children. She died in 1962 and was buried in Bray with an American flag draped over coffin.
Estelle Lefeuvre traveled to Bray earlier this month to give the bracelet to Josephine's grandnephew. On this Veteran's Day, I'm remembering Josephine with gratitude, and
all the many women who served, nursing the wounded and dying in American's wars. Greetings from sunny San Diego!
I had a great time talking to teenagers at the Central Public Library. It's a beautiful building.
There is a charter school actually located on two floors of the library building.
It serves the surrounding neighborhood which included a number of teens at high risk of homelessness.
Thanks for your time! Until next week... Have you read a great book? Tell me about it.
Have a burning question? Let me know. If you know someone who might enjoy my newsletter or books, please forward this e-mail. I will never spam you or sell your email address, you can unsubscribe below anytime with a single mouse click. To find out more about my books, how I help students, teacher and librarians, visit my website
at www.MaryCronkFarrell.com. My best, Mary
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